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Chapter 1: What unique insights does Craig MacTavish share about coaching?
Hey, it's Bob Stauffer. I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Oilers Now ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. That unique word that I deployed out of that one-minute-long hit.
I did cut that one out. I'm sorry.
We're not supposed to use it more than once an hour?
Is that it? It was a scary area. I didn't want to break it.
All right. Suck it up. Good decision. There you go. I do want to mention to you Brentridge Ford. Welcome back, everybody. It's 534 in oil country. We've got Craig McTavish back to you on Mondays. Brought to you by Michael and the staff at Contract Equipment. Canada's premium heavy equipment dealer with rental and sales.
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The quesadillas return. It's here to stay, loaded with seasoned chicken, chipotle, mayo, peppers, onions, and cheese for only $15.95. Visit royalpizza.ca. Lots of you have lots of opinions. Just before we go back to MACD. Owners are billionaires, and my understanding is billionaires don't like to be told from the 778 out of British Columbia. They don't like to be told what they can and can't do.
I can't stand Vegas, says a texter. I don't like the Oilers being bent over by them. I like that the Oilers have moved on, says this texter. Again, this on the news today. And we said it.
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Chapter 2: How does the Oilers' management influence coaching decisions?
All signs are pointing. The Oilers are 100% uniform. Mike Babcock is their guy. From ownership to management to players. Again, you can text us on the Ashley54's text line. Bob, it's not choosing Babcock that makes no sense. It's the timing of the decision. Well, we can't time when stuff gets out. And we don't know who put it out on the PA end of Darren Drager. So we don't know.
We don't know how far back this has gone on. I would suggest to you it's... The owners have been in an interview process, and we don't know the parameters of the Cassidy deal. Again, I'll give John Shachanan credit. He said all along Cassidy will be able to interview jobs. There were other guys that thought, I don't think that's going to be the case.
I believe that the Vegas Golden Knights would hold firm and rather eat $4.5 million in Cassidy for another year than to end up seeing him in Edmonton or L.A. where he might be able to engineer a playoff victory against them at a future time. Craig McTavish is here, Mac T on Mondays.
How do you think you... Well, I don't think Mike ever had any problems with, you know, Lidstrom, Zetterberg, or Datsouk. I mean, it's the bottom-tier guys that I think he had a problem with. And... I hope he recognizes that because he's got potential to come in here and do a great job. But I think it was a relationship, and you need the foot soldiers to be in your court too as well as a coach.
And I think that's kind of where he ran into problems at times, but not with the star players. Let me ask you this.
He has not been coaching in the NHL for seven years. He was viewed as a very strong technical coach. I personally know how much of a hockey junkie he is. Do you think he'd have any problems in terms of the technical side of the game and maybe how it's different today than it was six or seven years ago?
No, I don't. I think he was as strong technically as, I mean, you look at his background. I mean, he grew up coaching and, you know, super strong in his messaging skills. to the players, very comfortable in front of the players, certainly not going to be intimidated by the players, which I said earlier is definitely a criteria here.
And, you know, our star players, you have to take them at the word. I mean, it's not very often players criticize coaches. And our guys, maybe not directly, but... Not indirectly either. They were critical of the coaching staff.
And, you know, I think the organization does a good job bringing them into the decision because he's going to have, when they participate in that decision, then they own it.
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Chapter 3: What challenges does Mike Babcock face returning to coaching?
And he's going to have great, I mean, all coaches, we want to be able to influence players and get them to do things that maybe they weren't doing before. And I think this gives him that ability right away to influence those players. All right.
So I'm going to throw this your way because people will say, well, let's not forget Chris Knobloch took the Edmonton Oilers to the seventh and sixth game of the Stanley Cup championship. That is true. Chris did a good job. He would be the first to tell you he had great support from Glenn Gullitson and from Paul Coffey. Those guys played a significant factor, uh,
And I think that if you listen to a guy like Derek Ryan, you'd say the first year Chris was there, he made real good use of depth players and pieces around. And it started in the second year a little bit more challenging. Now, in Derek's case, he was old. Yeah, he was declining. A declining 38-year-old player that was undersized and slow. Not a good combination.
I used to tell Derek... I mean, the philosophy of using everybody in your lineup is... Good. But if you don't have the personnel and the bottom six guys aren't capable of doing it, then it doesn't work. And Detroit, for years, it used to bother me. They'd say, okay, we overbake our players in the American League.
Well, that's because your big team was so frigging strong you didn't need to put those players in. Where it's a problem, and that philosophy breaks down, is that your young players are quite a bit better than the players you're keeping and you're sending them to the minors. And I said once to Kenny Holland, I said, hey, Kenny, when Datsouk, Lidstrom...
and zetterberg are gone this stuff is going to make more sense to you than it does right now and it did and it did yeah it's just it's it's one philosophy doesn't it i mean it's all driven by the level of your personnel so full disclosure here ken holland in the five years that he was gm of the team the orders had the second best record in the west eighth best record overall okay he helped guide the team the seventh game of stanley cup now i will tell you
that mcdavid dry saddle elevating their game to being point and a half per game players in the playoffs and the emergence of bouchard played a factor in it as well but you have to give him credit for giving the depth but they had much greater depth but they had they did a poor job drafting and a poor job developing and that's one of the things that sort of held them back well they traded a lot of draft choices yes they did and that's that that affects your development
Okay, so now here's where I'm going to go with this back to Chris and the coaching staff. He lost Glenn Gullitson to Dallas and then elected not to bring Paul back, which, okay, fine. I get it. I get that he didn't bring Paul back at the time that he did. And the team was never really got going all year. I mean, when... And you talk about the feedback of the players, direct and indirect.
The Oilers lose game six of the Stanley Cup final last year. What did Conor McDavid say? We didn't make... the type of changes we needed to address how they were playing. You know, he said that. That questions coaching. Then, the game in Calgary, right before the Olympics, the first thing Leon Drysaddle said, it wasn't indirect. It was direct free kick right to the melon.
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Chapter 4: How do player relationships impact coaching effectiveness?
And then, perhaps, indirect, Connor McDavid... talking effusively about the greatness of John Cooper. He is a great coach.
He also has a wonderful... I didn't like any of that stuff. I don't think it's appropriate to do it. I think the dressing room is... Was it not a sign that there was some... Sanctity. Right. And... These guys have tremendous influence. Knock on Chris's door and go in there. All coaches tell the players the door is open.
When you're a guy that's winning the King Clancy Trophy and the Hart Trophy multiple years, you don't need to go to the media with that stuff. I don't think that's good.
Wild Bill says, there's no issue with the Babcock hire. It was a consensus that Cassidy was the best coach available. Why not wait until Vegas is done? Clearly, Cassidy was the top of the list. Some of you have said, no, they should have moved on. This text comes in out of the salmon Vancouver. I don't have a strong opinion on this hire.
It would have been nice to wait the extra week for Cassidy and at least, uh, to not allow Vegas to excuse the playoff run for holding out permission. Well, I will say what I will say is if management believes he Babcock is a good coach, why would they put extra weight on the leadership by leaking that McDavid has signed off of the coach?
Just hire them, consult leadership, but leave them out of the burden of responsibility. Well, It was out there on Twitter by 3 o'clock that the players were involved in the process. Okay. By 3 o'clock. So all we did is instead of ā It's hard to keep those things internalized.
Right.
Instead of me coming in here and saying, everybody just relax and let's just see how this process plays out. I was like, I'm not going to BS anybody. Like I'm telling you right now, 100% from ownership to management to the players, they're on board with Babcock. End of discussion, okay? I could have sat here and mollycoddled and pussyfooted around on the air.
Instead, we went the other way, which is to not BS you. And, hey, if you don't like it, you don't like it. That's okay. I get it. We're reading the texts from you that don't like it either, and that comes with the territory. You can text us at 780-451-8800.
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Chapter 5: What is the significance of player feedback in coaching decisions?
Yeah. Reuters got derailed by Holland's mismanagement of talent. It was tragic tunnel vision and speaking into an echo chamber, very narrow minded. James from Calgary says, there's no gray here. Either this is a home run or the Hindenburg that could cost us 97. Maybe we don't start the season asleep under Babcock, dare to dream. Well, there's been some slow starts the last three years.
Yeah, I think he could improve that for sure. And, I mean, Connor, he's got a contract for two more years. I think you have to assume... unless things get better, that he's going to move on.
I would assume the fact that he's been, you know, part of the process, to what extent? Well, yeah, that's a positive for him staying longer. Right, there you go. We'll take a timeout. It is 5.45 in oil country. Gregory Tabish is here. Mac TM Mondays for Contract Equipment, Canada's premium heavy equipment dealer with rental and sales. Very quickly, Brendan Escott's got inside sports coming up.
The young guns here. What's he got coming up?
At 6.35, one of his regulars, David Pagnotto, will join him. It's Elks heavy today. At 7.05, the head coach of the team, Mark Killam. At 7.20, linebacker Kenny Logan Jr. And at 7.35, Elks analyst Blake Dermott.
This day in Oilers history brought to you by New West Travel, your local travel experts. What do you got?
Well, on this day in 1983 at the NHL draft, the Oilers take Jeff Bukabum, 19th overall out of the Sioux Greyhounds, and Esa Tikkanen, 80th overall out of Finland. Boogaboom played parts of six seasons with the Oilers between 1986 and 1992 before being traded to New York. Tikkanen joined him on the Rangers in a trade two years later.
All right. There you have it. If you missed any of today's show, make sure to download and subscribe to the Oilers Now podcast. available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere you get your streaming audio. We're getting lots of texts coming in, most of which are on Babcock, and I'm not going to BS you. Most are not supportive of the Oilers' decision.
I mean, I was pretty strong with what I said today at 4 o'clock to open today's show, that this is 100% the decision of ownership management and of players, but there have been some texts on Darnell Nurse. You drafted Darnell Nurse. Now this is going to be scary.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of Darnell Nurse's contract situation?
Because I know I felt at times that Darnell Nurse could have been a modern version of Larry Robinson, a big, rangy defenseman that could skate and that was tough and had ongoing, you know, could potentially develop more offense over time.
well that i did too i mean he was just a wrecking machine in junior i mean he covered so much territory and so much stronger i knew he was going to be good and he is good i mean the the contentious issue for darnell is 9.25 million yeah and it's no fault of his i mean the organization Bridged them and bridged them. They weren't sure. And we had very few options left.
I can't even remember who signed him to that contract.
Ken Holland signed him eight years, 9.25.
And Kenny had very little because Darnell and his camp was mad because they could have given him a much cheaper long term deal. Two years earlier, the year before, bridge, bridge, bridge. And then the year of the big defense. And then Darnell hit him over the head. All of D got the huge deal. He hit him over the head with a hammer. And that's not Darnell's fault. You'd want him on your team.
It's just... If he was six and a half or seven. Yeah. And, you know, like... I still think there's more there.
I'll give you a team that makes sense. It's Pittsburgh. Kyle Dubas was Darnell's general manager in Sault Ste. Marie. I just don't know. Pittsburgh, they had an ownership change. And I know that the league didn't go with, there was a couple different offers. And I know one of the offers, because I know a guy that was involved in it, was really well-heeled.
And I'm not sure where it's at for Kyle Dubas right now and Vuky Mapofu and all the guys that work in that Pittsburgh, how much money they're actually able to spend. Who the heck is Vuky Mapofu? He played in the Western League. He just dropped that one out of nowhere. Just like I used to drop Chris McFarlane out of nowhere. I'm going to make a prediction right now.
In 10 to 12 years, Vuky Mopofu will be an NHL general manager.
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Chapter 7: How has the Oilers' drafting and development strategy evolved?
Oh, well, I don't need any more. You have bold predictions here. Hey, I said that Chris Knobloch was going to be a head coach one day.
Well, you got the Chris McFarlane thing from Scott Housen. I mean, Scott loved Chris McFarlane when he was in Columbus as a general manager, and Chris McFarlane was underneath him. He's done an unbelievable job. I don't know how they got him out of... out of Colorado. But that's a story for another day.
And you know that I carried forward Chris McFarland when Pete Shirely was fired in 2019 and took that to some higher levels of the orders and said, this is the best young American executive in the league. We all know the Canadian guys. I've never met him. I don't know anything about him. Most understated guy you would like. Quiet, hard work.
Well, I mean, Scott Housen's a pretty good judge of character. We agree. Final word for you, Mac T, that see this process through. And you said something else. Maybe give Babcock a chance.
Yeah, I think we're second chance here. I'm all for that. And we all learn from our mistakes. And I'm sure Mike is in that category. I've met Mike multiple times. I can't say I always loved him coaching against him and some of the stuff that he used to try to do to us. But, you know, I'm all for giving him a chance. I think it could be a home run for the Oilers.
We'll continue to monitor this story tomorrow when Elliot Friedman and Brian Lawton will join us. We had to pivot today. We had a couple other guests lined up coming out of the NHL Combine. But for sure, Elliot and Brian, tomorrow I'd like to thank everybody who texted us. I'm sorry if I didn't read your text. I read a lot of the negative texts. No problem getting that. I love the passion.
It's a privilege to do this. We don't always have to agree. That's kind of how it rolls. Up next, an 880 News weather traffic update with Zach Ferguson, followed by Inside Sports with Brennan Escott.
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Chapter 8: What predictions are made about the future of the Oilers under Babcock?
So long, everybody, from orders now.
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